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Friday, 1 January 2016

The Imperial German Navy vs. Haiti, 1897 and 1902

The Imperial German Navy that went to war in 1914 was essentially a creation of previous four
decades. One tends to think of it in terms of its squadrons of superbly
engineered battleships and battle-cruisers, designed primarily for the anticipated
show-down with the Royal Navy in the North Sea. It was however with smaller vessels on remote
locations that the most action had been seen by German naval personnel and such
service was a vital element in developing the leadership and expertise of
officers and ratings alike. Operations to protect trading interests in China, or
in support of colonial ventures in Africa and in the Pacific, or in projecting
German influence in the Caribbean, all involved light cruisers and smaller
ships, some of which saw very active service indeed.

SMS Jaguar - sister of the SMS Panther

One such
vessel was the gunboat SMS Panther,
which in this blog has been seen in action in Venezuelan coastal waters in 1903
(Click here to read the article aboutthis). Her presence at the Moroccan port of Agadir in 1911 was to be
interpreted as a hostile act by the French Government – which regarded Morocco
in its sphere of influence – and the resulting crisis all but plunged Europe into
World War I three years early. Before either of these events however the newly-built
Panther had already played a violent
international role, though against an adversary so weak that the rest of the world
took little notice.

SMS Charlotte (1883): 3700-ton corvette

The history
of the Caribbean nation of Haiti had been a sad one ever since achieving
independence in 1804. Poverty, the threat
of foreign intervention, negative racist attitudes by many nations towards the world’s
only “Black Republic” established by ex-slaves and a succession of coups and
countercoups held back development and left its people in abject poverty. In
1897 the Imperial German Government – flexing its new naval muscles – sent two
warships, SMS Charlotte and SMS Stein, to intimidate Haitian president into
apologising for the attest of a certain Emile Lüders, born in Haiti but whose father
was German, who had been involved in a brawl. The affair was a trivial one – Lüders,
though sentenced to a year’s imprisonment, had already been pardoned by the president
and had left the country six weeks before the German warships arrived. Despite
this, Haiti was forced to accept a humiliating climb-down –compensation of $20,000
for Lüders, a promise that he could return to Haiti, a letter of apology to the
German government and a 21-gun salute to the German flag. Four hours were
allowed for acceptance, which was to be accepted by raising of a white flag
over the presidential palace. Out-gunned, Haiti had no option but to comply.

Humiliation, 1897: the German ultimatum is delivered to Haiti. There are four hours to comply.

Haiti’s navy
consisted of a single modern vessel, the gunboat Crête-à-Pierrot which had entered service in 1896. Built in
Britain, at Earle’s shipyard in Hull, this 950 ton single-screw vessel was armed
with one 6-inch gun, one 4.7-inch, four 4-inch and several machine guns.
Command of the Haitian navy fell to Admiral Hammerton Killick (1856 – 1902), of
mixed Haitian and British descent. His job must have been an almost impossible one
for shortage of funds meant thatpayment of crews was irregular, food insufficient and
cannibalisation of parts essential to ensure operability. It was not a good foundation
from which to confront the Imperial German Navy when it would next come
calling.

Hammerton Killick

In 1902
Haiti was plunged yet again into one of the interminable civil conflicts that
had bedevilled it since
independence. This had resulted from disagreements between two political leaders,
Anténor Firmin and Pierre Nord Alexis, as
to who should succeed a president who had just resigned. Admiral Hammerton
Killick threw his support behind Firmin and proceeded to use the ships
available to him to blockade the ports held by Alexis’s forces. This affair would
have remained a local one had Alexis not ordered ammunition from overseas and
it was carried on a German ship, the Markomannia,
of the Hamburg-Amerika Line. This ship was intercepted by Killick’s Crête-à-Pierrot, searched and it cargo
confiscated, the munitions on board being transferred to the Haitian gunboat.
The Markomannia was then allowed to
proceed unhindered.

German prestige was judged to have been damaged by the Crête-à-Pierrot’s action, a stance that
was strengthened when Alexis – the Haitian leader who had been deprived of his
ammunition – appealed for help to eliminate “a pirate ship.” The task was
allocated to a recently commissioned German gunboat, SMS Panther, a 1200-ton, 210-foot vessel armed with two 4-inch and six
1.5-inch guns, plus lesser weapons. Given
the differences in resources, training and professionalism, the contest was
going to be an unequal one.

Crête-à-Pierrot’s after-magazine blowing up

The Crête-à-Pierrot
was in the harbour of Gonaïves, on Haiti’s north-west coast, when the Panther arrived on 6th
September 6. Hammerton Killick and most of the crew were on shore but he rushed
back to his ship. Realising that resistance would be futile, he ordered the crew
still on board to leave and then, in an insane act of defiance, wrapped himself
in a Haitian flag and blew up the aft magazine. As the shattered Crête-à-Pierrot settled she took with her
not only Killick but four crew members who had remained with him. His action
had been eerily similar to that of the Dutch Lieutenant Jan van Speijk at
Antwerp in 1831(Click here to read an earlier article about this).

The Panther was
not finished however – she poured some thirty shells into the wreck before departing, leaving Haitian forces to salvage
whatever weapons and munitions they could. It was hardly a victory to boast of.
It is interesting to note that the United States did not object to the German
action as a violation of the Monroe Doctrine. The State Department apparently
endorsed the action and the New York
Times stated that “Germany was quite
within her rights in doing a little housecleaning on her own account".
One cannot but have an uneasy feeling that a degree of racial prejudice was
involved in this stance since the next time the SMS Panther went into action, against Venezuelan defences in 1903, it
led to the so-called “Roosevelt Corollary
to the Monroe Doctrine.” This asserted a right of the United States to
intervene to "stabilise" the economic affairs of small states in the
Caribbean and Central America if they were unable to pay their international
debts, in order to preclude European intervention to do so.

And Hammeton
Killick? Though his sacrifice may look in retrospect to be a futile one, he
came to be regarded as a national hero. A stamp bearing his likeness, and with
a picture of the Crête-à-Pierrot
exploding, was issued by Haiti in 1943. It seems like a poor compensation for
five lives, his four crew members’ as well as his own.

Just published: Britannia’s Spartan

In April 1882 Captain Nicholas Dawlish RN has
just taken command of the Royal Navy’s newest cruiser, HMS Leonidas. Her voyage to the Far East is to be a peaceful venture, a
test of this innovative vessel’s engines and boilers. Dawlish has no
forewarning of the nightmare of riot, treachery, massacre and battle he and his
crew will encounter.

A new
balance of power is emerging in the Far East. Imperial China, weak and corrupt,
is challenged by a rapidly modernising Japan, while Russia threatens from the
north. All need to control Korea, a kingdom frozen in time and reluctant to
emerge from centuries of isolation.

Dawlish
finds himself a critical player in a complex political powder keg. He must take
account of a weak Korean king and his shrewd queen, of murderous palace
intrigue, of a power-broker who seems more American than Chinese and a Japanese
naval captain whom he will come to despise and admire in equal measure. And he
will have no one to turn to for guidance…

10 comments:

Thanks Paul - It's sad to realise that these were just more incidents in the endless sequence of misery that has constituted Haiti's history. One has the impression that until relatively recently much of the rest of the world all but wished the country to fail.

About Me

My "Dawlish Chronicles" are set in the late 19th Century and reflect my deep interest in the politics, attitudes and technology of the period. The fifth novel in the series, “Britannia’s Amazon” is now available in both paperback and Kindle formats. It follows the four earlier Dawlish Chronicles, "Britannia's Wolf", "Britannia's Reach”, "Britannia's Shark" and "Britannia's Spartan". Click on the book covers below to learn more or to purchase.
I’ve had an adventurous career in the international energy industry and am proud of having worked in every continent except Antarctica. History is a driving passion in my life and I have travelled widely to visit sites of historical significance, many insights gained in this way being reflected in my writing. I welcome contact on Facebook and via this Blog. My website is www.dawlishchronicles.com and its “Conflict” section has a large number of articles on topics from the mid-18th Century to the early 20th Century.